Restart
by blood red youth
Summary: Not for the first time, Larten wonders about his mistakes.


It was late, and many vampires were resting before the start of the Festival. The Hall was still packed full of vampires finishing their final battles, but none were drunk – all were practicing seriously, either to ensure that they gave a good showing at the Festival or in order to prepare for real-world battles that they would no doubt be expected to participate in over the coming years. Arra was sitting, chin resting on one knee and another leg dangling, on one of the higher bars without a challenger.

Without doing anything to alert her to his presence, Larten crept along the top of the structure and fetched himself a staff. This was as good a night as any for their first duel – she had waited long enough.

He stepped onto the structure and grinned at her, trying to find his feet, but she looked back at him in an unexpected, sad way. He crossed the bars delicately, trying to find his balance, and came to a stop beside her.

"Not now," she said, in a tone that left no room for argument.

He was taken aback. It took him a few moments, but eventually he managed to fold himself down into a sitting position beside her, staff across his lap.

"Why not?" he asked, put out by her blunt refusal.

"I'd like to talk to you before I knock you unconscious, if possible," she grunted, shifting to face him. Though he steadied himself on the narrow bar with one hand, legs locked around the plank to ensure that he wouldn't fall even in a sitting position, she looked comfortable enough that she might have been sitting on the ground.

"Why are you back?" she asked.

He was so taken aback by the question that he actually laughed. "You never were one to beat around the bush," he started, unsure whether he was amused or frightened. "In truth, there are several reasons. Darren –"

"Don't give me that," she interrupted, eyes flashing. His mouth snapped shut instantly. "You'd have come with Darren to face judgement and then run again with your tail between your legs if that was truly the only reason. Why have you come back?"

He floundered for an explanation. She wasn't entirely right – he wouldn't have left Darren in the care of someone else to face his Trials, even though that was quite normal behaviour for a mentor who had other tasks to be getting on with while their assistant trained. Their relationship was rather different, and he could not have justified leaving Darren to face his possible fate without being around to answer his annoying questions throughout the process. They were closer than either of them liked to admit, but she had no way of knowing that.

But there was some merit in what she was saying. He had been excited, on the last leg of their trek towards the Mountain, at the prospect of seeing Seba, of seeing the Mountain itself, and of being a _part_ of something again. It was uncomfortable to have to discuss that, but Arra had a way of making him say things he didn't really want to.

"I have missed it," he admitted, reluctantly, embarrassed by his own weakness. "I did not realize how much until I was halfway here."

"Why did you leave it so long, then?" she asked.

That was another question he didn't wish to answer. After Wester, after everything…

"I was busy," he tried, but she shook her head, eyes like steel, and he sighed.

"I was not sure that I would be welcomed," he said, grimacing.

"Why?" she pressed, unsatisfied. "Because of your resignation?"

"No," he groaned, and ran a hand over his eyes. "I had other reasons. I do not want to talk about it."

This time, it seemed he was off the hook.

"People were telling all sorts of wild tales about you before you returned," she commented, changing tack, to his relief. "You've rather ruined your own mystique by coming back with no dramatic story to tell."

He wasn't going to correct her. He shifted slightly, careful not to topple himself over the edge, and chuckled.

"Have I been painted as a hero?" he asked.

"No," Arra replied bluntly. "Some thought you had gone mad. A few thought it was likely that you had turned rogue, and attributed occasional bouts of carnage in cities you were known to frequent to _you_, until we found a more plausible culprit or used the Stone to disprove them. Others thought you had settled down somewhere with a human again, perhaps revealing _all_ the information to her this time, and intended to live out the rest of your life in relative peace."

Her last comment stung a little, but only in a distant long-forgotten way. It was a familiar ache, like pressing on an old scar and still recalling the way the wound felt when it was fresh.

"What did you think?" he asked, though he wasn't certain the answer would be pleasing.

Arra hummed thoughtfully. "I wasn't sure," she admitted. "Though I didn't relish the thought of hunting you down if you had gone mad. I spent a week in Paris twenty years ago wondering if the rogue vampire I'd been told I was tracking was actually _you_."

The very fact that she had given it so much thought unsettled him.

"I would like to think you were relieved, when you discovered otherwise," he suggested hopefully.

"I was," she agreed half-heartedly. "If only because I wasn't sure I could match you, even if you _had_ gone insane. If it had been you and you had bested me when I arrived to either bring you back for judgement or kill you, I would have considered that a very humiliating end."

He had been hoping for a slightly less gruesome answer. He hadn't realized that his peers thought him so easily drawn into madness.

"I gave some thought to the other options," she continued, seemingly without noticing his furrowed brow. "But I didn't really think you'd settle with another human. You never could have told her the whole truth, but you couldn't have lied to her either."

She was right about that. He couldn't remember the last time he'd endeavoured to speak to a human at any length, let alone start up a relationship with one.

"I hoped you were living with the wolves in the wilds," she concluded. "I thought that would have been the happiest possible ending."

"But you did not believe it," he prompted.

"No," she agreed. "You would have had to abandon your coffin and your fancy cloak forever to do that, and I knew you never would."

For a couple of seconds, they both chuckled. He was not opposed to living like an animal when he needed to, but he well remembered lamenting the loss of his coffin while they travelled across war zones together and encouraging her to clean his cloak if she had a moment. The request had been met with a snarling threat of violence, and his complaints had been met with very little sympathy.

"You could have searched for me, if you wanted to know for certain," he said, tapping the side of his head. She wasn't looking at him, but she rolled her eyes even as she stared off into a boxing match at the other side of the Hall.

"I could have," she agreed. Though she said nothing else on the subject, the implication was quite clear. She had the capability to locate him and track him for a few weeks, and if she had bothered the answers would have become clear. The clear fact of the matter was that she hadn't wanted to have her suspicions confirmed.

"When we found out that you were with the Cirque, Seba was quite pleased," Arra continued. "He liked the idea that you got to play with your spiders all day and scare the life out of human audience members. Paris was less amused. He argued that you would never find purpose at the Cirque the way you had found it here. Some others thought it was relatively disgraceful, and mocked you for your cowardice while you weren't around."

Though she had not said so, he could just imagine Mika's raised eyebrow and amused smirk. He was pleased to hear that Seba had not been ashamed of him, but her comments about Paris did not surprise him much. The elderly Prince had for over a century now felt that he was destined for something greater than the aimless, pointless life he seemed so determined to choose. Though Larten felt certain now that it had been the influence of Destiny that had pushed him to make the decisions he did, he couldn't help regretting the night he had turned down Paris' offer to take him as a student. His life might have been much more simple and much more bearable had he allowed someone else to be his guide.

"Others were angry," Arra cut in, shocking him out of his reverie. "They had expected better of a man who had almost been their leader. _Some_ could just picture you in hiding from the rest of your kind at a circus, wearing stage makeup and performing tricks for humans like a dog. We fought many battles in your absence. If you hadn't shirked your responsibility, those would have been battles you could have helped us to win, as a Prince."

"Am I safe to assume that you were a part of that group?" he asked dryly, without needing the confirmation. He hadn't been expecting the attack, but it hadn't entirely come as a surprise either.

Arra shrugged. This time, the conversation finally more interesting to her than the fight she had been watching, her eyes flicked to his.

"I thought you were worth more than the life you'd chosen," she said, blunt as ever. "I'm not going to apologize for that."

The comment made him feel worse than he had expected. It wasn't the first time he had regretted something, but it was the first time that he had registered that his resignation was something worthy of regret.

He wondered briefly whether it was worth engaging her on whether being a General was better than being a circus act. She was an important General now, arguably more so than he had been when he'd decided to defect but with a little less flair, and it was clear that she was proud of the position she had carved for herself. He was proud of her too, but he was not jealous. He did not lament the loss of his position like she thought he did, because really he did not see anything particularly noble in the way he'd acted as a General. He had permitted Alicia to die for what he perceived to be the greater good, and had searched for a purpose in serving the clan that had never become entirely clear.

"Despite what others thought," he said, treading carefully, not wishing to offend her. "I was not suited to life as a General. I would not have made a great leader."

"No," she agreed. "You wouldn't, with that state of mind."

"I suppose you think it is quite embarrassing to be associated with me," he remarked. "In hindsight, you could have done better."

She rolled her eyes again. It was a weak attempt at flattery. "Perhaps," she teased, without giving anything away, and then she gracefully gathered herself to her feet. It took him several moments longer, dragging each foot into place and steadying himself with his arms while he struggled to maintain his balance. She stepped onto another bar, staff held loosely in her left hand, and it was only after a couple of seconds that he understood that she was inviting him to spar.

"Will it be humiliating if I beat you?" he asked, lips threatening to twitch into a smile. His balance was better now that he was on his feet. "I would rather not damage your reputation. From what I hear, my assistant almost had the better of you, let alone me personally."

He didn't feel it necessary to mention that Darren hadn't been able to dress the next morning, or that he was still limping. The spark of amusement in her eyes was extinguished quickly.

"We'll see," she growled threateningly, and then dove in for a quick attack. He jumped away to escape her, surprised with the ease that he managed to land on the above bar. It was like being back in Vampire Mountain eighty years ago – he was light on his feet again and everything was suddenly familiar. When he turned to swing the staff down at her from above, she tilted only slightly to avoid the strike, and then took a quick swipe at his shin before leaping to join him on the higher bar.

Before either of them had launched a serious strike, there was a cough from the edge of the structure. Gavner drummed his fingers on the railing, trying not to look too interested in their fight. He looked mortified to have interrupted, and was blushing as though he thought that by interrupting a match on the bars that he'd stepped in on an impossibly intimate moment.

"Sorry," he grunted, after they had both turned to look at him, and Larten resisted the urge to mock him. "The Princes have called a meeting, about the prophecy."

For a moment, Larten followed her onto the platform, convinced he was invited too. It was only after a few moments that he realized that he was a separate entity.

"Another night," she said apologetically. They had waited almost a century, he supposed – it wouldn't hurt to wait another couple of weeks for another opportunity to present itself.

"It would not have been fitting for you to attend the meeting with broken bones," he teased, though there was a tightness in his chest and he did not feel like he was telling a joke. "I understand."

Gavner, still blushing furiously, started off ahead, and without another word Arra followed, leaving Larten behind, staff in hand still, staring out over the Hall. Several of the vampires who had been sparring were laying aside their weapons and brushing themselves down, preparing to head into the meeting as well. He had never truly considered how much of an outsider he would be here – at the Cirque, it had been easy to believe that he would be able to keep his good status even away from the clan, but now that he was here he could see that he was no longer a part of it the way he had been. He spent a long time, after the others had filed out, wondering whether he had indeed been destined for more than the life he had chosen.


End file.
